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“What do you want from me?” I ask. “This is your chance to make yourself clear.”

Elias is still on the tiles, hair in his face, lips wet.

“I want in,” he says. “I want to work for you.”

I study Elias. He means it. The boy who lied about his name. The boy who followed me through midnight streets. He’s got guts, but I sense there is more to him. The boy has potential unlike anyone I have met before.

“I will think about it,” I reply, handing him back the paddle.

I unlock the door. I leave Elias there, his trembling body and mind a satiated mess.

The corridor is empty. I walks to the bar and sit.

Without missing a beat, Jacque serves up a new vodka.

And then the thought arrives while the first sip of vodka is still in my throat…

Elias can walk through rooms my generals cannot even enter.

He already knows how to listen at doors.

He already wants a master.

He already owes me his skin.

All that makes Elias useful. If I put him near the Lucci family, I am putting my name on his back.

I turn the empty glass and watch the bar lights break in it. I told Elias I would think. In truth, it was the start of a calculation.

Risk for me. Risk for him. But if it works… it’ll be worth it for us both.

But first, the boy will need the kind of training that only I can give…

8

ELIAS

By the time the last glasses are stacked I can still feel the locker room on my skin.

The way I went to my knees on staff tiles and licked the salty, sticky leather because Dmitri told me to.

I change fast.

Street clothes. Backpack with paddle safely tucked away.

I am almost out the service corridor when Jacque steps into my path. Not blocking. Just there, a cloth over his shoulder.

The bar quiet behind him, I can tell Jacque’s got something to say.

“Be careful with him,” Jacque whispers, his voice low.

Him. No name. He does not need one.

“I have it under control.”

Jacque’s mouth makes a small, tired shape. “A man like Dmitri is more dangerous than anyone you have ever met.”

I almost laugh. I have met dangerous. Singapore. Athens. Boys with guns and older men with entire arsenals.